Good times to abandon idea groups?

[Frungy78]

I was thinking- for what nations and when is it a good time to abandon an idea group to reopen up a slot?

Like say I'm Tunisia going for Sons of Carthage. I take exploration early to open up the southern Sahara, but I have no intention of colonizing beyond that. I pick up the desert provinces, and then I'm pretty much set to abandon the idea group, right?

Or if I'm a large nation like Sweden and take religious ideas early to convert to Protestantism more quickly (probably even unnecessary here). I convert everything, then I can dump religious (unless I really want to keep Deus Vult).

Any other thoughts?

 

[Santoes]

Countries that get free troops for the first idea of aristocracy perhaps.

 

[Niebulheim]

Sub-Saharan nations:

1. Only take the first idea in Expansion for the colonist.
2. Colonize as much as you can before the Europeans.
3. Abandon Expansion and pick something useful.

 

[ldevarga]

The only ones I can see myself abandoning on a regular basis are exploration and expansion (expansion less so).
Maybe econ (when I don't need the inflation reduction anymore).

Religious I'd probably keep because I doubt I'll never need it again, but perhaps.

 

[Ultrix Prime]

Sub-Saharan nations:

1. Only take the first idea in Expansion for the colonist.
2. Colonize as much as you can before the Europeans.
3. Abandon Expansion and pick something useful.

Indeed, on the new map picking exploration as Tunis[ia] is only useful for getting close to countries you want to conquer. In the previous map, you could cash in on 20 or so provinces in short distance but those are all little countries now.

 

[Incompetent]

It could be useful for certain one-off decisions that require idea groups.

 

[durvas]

Exploration for pretty much everyone that isn't going to do major early colonization. Dip is more abundant now as you have a hard time integrating without idea groups so it's affordable. Being able to see the map early on is great. You can shut down the colonizers, spread out your expansion, get land routes to China, etc. without having to waste a whole group slot. Just explore then dump it for something better.